The Dungeon Conquerors: Journey to the Peak

With the promise that any news about Anton's punishment would not be told to outsiders, the Gontham family immediately left the royal palace. Duke Gontham was a bit tensed as it looked like his father was in a bad mood after meeting up with duke Leonance. So he did not stay in the royal palace any longer than he needed to.

On their way returning home in a carriage, Duke got the chance to ask his father about the reason why he was in a bad mood. The answer that was given made even the duke worried. It looked like that old crook duke Leonance had managed to master a new spell with the help of his granddaughter. That made him even stronger than before.

Duke Leonance getting stronger was obviously not a pleasant news for the members of the Gontham family. But the thing that made those two men most upset was the potential of Duke Leonance's Granddaughter. This girl was only about 10 years old but she was already a rank 4 mage. That was something never seen before in the long history of the Magic Kingdom of Gilthar.

She would most definitely reach the rank of a magus in the future and might even be able to reach rank 7, becoming a grand magus. That was a terrible thing for the Gontham family. They were already losing their influence with the Leonance family getting stronger and stronger. If a second magus appeared in their family then that would spell trouble for the Gontham family.

With a grave look on his face, duke Gontham asked his father if they should do something about that little girl. She was already a rank 4 mage. If given more time and if she reached an even higher rank, then taking care of her would became even harder.

Hearing what his son was telling, the old magus fell into deep thoughts for a few minutes. Then he came to a decision in his mind and looked at his son but did not say anything. The duke was very much familiar with his father and immediately understood what he wanted to say. He also did not say anything and just bowed his head in agreement.

The reason why they did not discuss about their decision was a very weird spell that duke Leonance was able to use. This spell could detect any spoken malice and it had managed to help the Leonance family to find their enemies many many times.

With how much the old duke loved his granddaughter, he was definitely using this spell to keep her secure. That was the reason why both of these crafty people did not spoke about their plans much and mostly communicated with body language.

...

After the Gontham family left, the atmosphere in the royal palace became a lot more calm. The royal family and the Leonance family did not have any conflicts and their relationship at the current moment was better than ever. So next they started to calmly discuss about what kind of punishment should be given to Anton.

The Gontham family had already said that they did not care about what kind of punishment was given to Anton as long as he was not killed. But as Anton was still a royal prince, the Leonance family needed to discuss with the royal family too.

The king and the magus of the royal family both were pratical individuals without much familiar bonding. Obviously if the dispute was between the royal family and a different family, then the situation would be completely different. But as both of the parties involved in the dispute were a member of the royal line, they did not take any sides actively.

For the royal family, the two most important royal heir that they would support at any cost were the first prince Lans and the second princess Karina. Even though Anton was third in line, his capability was nowhere near good enough to be compared with the first two. So the king did not really value him that much.

On the other hand, Luna had proven herself to be extremely talented. Even though in the royal appraisal she was not judged to be too exceptional and just average, she had proven that judgement to be wrong by reaching the third rank at such a young age. Even though her talents were not on par with a super genius like Lopas or an once in a millennia prodigy like Rein, she was definitely an outstanding mage.

With all that in mind, Lopas' big brother suggested that Anton should be stripped of his position as the third prince and should be made into a regular noble. He would also be banned from receiving any support from any of the other nobles and should be given the task of developing a barren region with his own hard work.

This punishment did not sound harsh at all and the royal family found it to me perfectly reasonable. They even felt that the Leonance family were giving them face by not suggesting harsher sentence so they felt a little bit grateful. But they were thinking this because they were not aware of Anton's personality.

Lopas' eldest brother had done extensive research on Anton with the help of his spies. He was aware that Anton was a lazy person without much ambition. So sending him to jail or giving him a beating would not be harsh enough. But if he was forced to do what he hated the most, which was to work hard and tirelessly for the rest of his life, then that would be the perfect punishment for someone like him.

That was how the punishment for him was decided by the Leonance and the Royal family. After this discussion was over, a royal servant went to inform Anton about his fate and the families started to discuss about various forms of cooperation. Duke Leonance also sent a servant to inform Rein and his girls about the result of the meeting.

That was how the meeting between three bigshot families came to an end.